Comment by Researcher pinkfreud on Sat 10 Nov 2007 - 1:19 am UTC:

This report says that 77,675 questions were asked on GA (37,971 of which
were answered) during the period from June 2002 through October 2004:

http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/RafaeliRabanRavidGoogleAnswersGroup05.pdf

Comment by Researcher davidsarokin on Sat 10 Nov 2007 - 2:33 am UTC:

I wonder if we can collectively solve the mystery of the missing Q&A's?  

The numbers that pinkfreud cited seem right to me, in my heart of hearts,
but try as I might, I could only come up with the 50,000-plus questions
that I identified in my answer.

The report also shows about 49% of the questions getting answered at
GA...higher than the 44% I came up with, but certainly in the same
ballpark.

ribuck, what do you think of all this?

David

Comment by Researcher davidsarokin on Sat 10 Nov 2007 - 4:08 am UTC:

On the other hand, 77,000 questions in a little over two years implies
almost 100 questions a day.  I don't think GA was cranking at quite that
rate (though it would have been nice!).  But 77,000 or thereabouts over the
course of the entire GA lifespan does seem a reasonable number to me. 

David

Comment by Researcher pinkfreud on Sat 10 Nov 2007 - 4:59 am UTC:

This report found more than 40,000 questions in the GA database as of
November 2003:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/pubs/GoogleAnswers-011404.pdf

Comment by User probo on Sat 10 Nov 2007 - 6:24 am UTC:

David wrote:

1: The very first question posted to Google Answers on April 9, 2002

2: GA's final day for posting questions was November 30, 2006

3: 77,000 questions in a little over two years implies almost 100 questions
a day.

Time sure goes fast when you are having fun.

Worried of Hove

Comment by User probo on Sat 10 Nov 2007 - 8:15 am UTC:

A search for Space brings up about 420,000 Results; while a search for ga
brings up about 467,000.

Obviously, the Question Numbers themselves (up to 787,272) are unhelpful
but I would have thought that 400,000 plus was possible.

Am I missing something?

Probo

Comment by User myoarin on Sat 10 Nov 2007 - 1:06 pm UTC:

The graph further down on Pink's first link does show the number of
questions per month for the period to Dec 2004, well over 2000 on average,
which does seem high, but we may have blotted out recollection of all the
"dfddf" type questions and the ca. 20,000 the report says received neither
an answer nor comment.

What happened to questions that were cancelled or removed by the Editor?
Could they have dropped out of David's statistics from the currently
available data for the categories?

Comment by User archae0pteryx on Tue 13 Nov 2007 - 7:46 am UTC:

A lot of questions have been deleted.  They started disappearing right
after the closing.  Present count is definitely low.

Tryx

Comment by Researcher Roger B (eiffel) on Tue 13 Nov 2007 - 2:09 pm UTC:

David: the reason you said "2 years" above is because you were referring to
the report cited by Pinkfreud which counted "77,675 questions ... (37,971
of which were answered) ... from June 2002 through October 2004".

I just checked the Google Answers site, and all of my 199 answers are still
online:
https://answers.google.com/answers/ratings?user=1173359978291513960

Regards,
Roger

Comment by Researcher Roger B (eiffel) on Tue 13 Nov 2007 - 2:12 pm UTC:

My fuzzy recollection is that for most of the time, questions ran about 6
per hour for most of the day, dropping to one per hour or less in the early
hours of the US morning.

Comment by Researcher davidsarokin on Tue 13 Nov 2007 - 2:26 pm UTC:

>>David: the reason you said "2 years" above is because you were referring
to the report cited by Pinkfreud <<

Like I said, there are a lot of things I never notice...!

Comment by User probo on Tue 13 Nov 2007 - 4:18 pm UTC:

Here's a thread from another forum that I posted on Dec 2, 2006:

When I reported earlier that some Questions had been axed, I was 
reporting my own experience which was really bizarre because just one 
of my many questions had been removed and that was an oldie which, I 
reckon, was over 3 years old. 

This is all that was left: 

Your question: BKWSU (Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University) was 
removed from Google Answers. The Google Answers editors have sent you 
an email to provide further details on this removal. If you have you 
have any concerns about this, please e-mail us at 
answers-supp...@google.com. Include the Question ID: 206345 and your 
Google Answers Nickname in any correspondence. 

Moreover, the Editors never did send me the promised email 'to provide 
further details on this removal'. 

However, I did not have any 'concerns' because I had saved a copy of 
the Answer as a Word Doc. It runs to 8 pages so I won't post it here. 

Anyway, here is a snippet: 

1. "Brahma Kumaris" cult 

(a) "On Thursday 8 January 1998, the Spanish police in Santa Cruz on 
the tourist island of Tenerife announced that they had only just 
prevented a mass suicide planned for that day  A Berlin psychologist, 
Ms Heide Fittkau-Garthe... was the leader, the 'World Mother', of the 
Atma Center (Isis Holistic Center); the cult involved in this.... 
Apparently, Fittkau-Garthe had been the leader of the Hamburg branch 
of the Brahma Kumaris religious group (founded in the 1930s in India; 
headquarters at Mt. Abu). She retained its doctrine of an elite of 
'golden souls', destined to reincarnate to rule the world in a new 
world era, and its belief in "Shiv Baba" (or "Brahma Baba") as supreme 
deity." 

My interest arose because one of my 'pro bono' clients was having a run 
in with a guy who was a member of this cult. I eventually met him and 
he truly believed that they were dstined to rule the world. He even 
tried to recruit me! 

Maybe if he had suceeded the Cult would now be ruling the world? 
However, when they failed to win me over, they then went for GA? (Only 
joking.) 

Worried of Hove 

Note: The Question was posted 20 May 2003 08:37 PDT and the Researcher was
Tehuti-ga.

Comment by Researcher admin on Tue 13 Nov 2007 - 4:42 pm UTC:

For any takedown notices, please use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of
the page :-)

Comment by User myoarin on Tue 13 Nov 2007 - 5:00 pm UTC:

Hi Bryan,

I suspect that Google was getting some feedback from someone about you
presentation and wanted to a void a possible legal fight  - maybe in your
interest.

Hmm, if Google holds the copyright, does that absolved the author from
responsibility for the contents?

Myo